Many years ago, in my early days in the city of Kazan, Russia, when studying on scholarship in the university and at the same time playing semiprofessional football in my city, I learned a big lesson about the link between frustration, bitterness and criticism.

Rubin Kazan was the top professional football club of our city and was one of the top football clubs in Russia during that period. They had been champions of the Russian football league for two consecutive years. In their UEFA champions league group, they were drawn with Barcelona, Inter Milan, and Dinamo Kiev. Our whole city was full of buzz and excitement at the prospect of such great football teams coming to play in our city stadium. Imagine the prospect of watching Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimović, and many great footballers live in your city. Tickets were sold out weeks before the games.

I was playing for a team in a lower semi-professional league in our city. I remember excitedly telling some of my Russian teammates in our lower level team how excited I was about watching the upcoming games in our city. Rubin Kazan had shocked the whole of Europe by beating Barcelona football club 2-1 in the Camp Nou (Barcelona’s home stadium) and everybody was looking forward to the return leg in my city. I was singing the praises of the players of Rubin Kazan for such an unprecedented feat when I got the shock of my life.

Some of my teammates were criticizing the players of Rubin Kazan, looking for flimsy excuses to downgrade their achievements. I could not believe my ears. One of them told me that even if tickets were given to him for free, he was not going to the stadium to watch those games. To say I was shocked will be an understatement. I could not understand how somebody who played football semi professionally will pass up a once in a lifetime opportunity of watching such great games, not on TV but live. This teammate of mine was criticizing almost every single player in the Rubin Kazan team. It was when I dug deeper that I began to understand what was happening.
Almost half of my teammates passed through the Rubin Kazan academy, that is the junior and youth teams. Every professional football team has an academy for the youth and young footballers are trained at the various levels, Under-10, under-13, under-17 and up to the senior team. Those who become full professionals at the senior level are those who passed through all these levels and reached the very top. Many do not make the cut for various reasons. Lack of talent, indiscipline, injury, and lack of focus are some of the reasons why some do not make the cut and may be dropped at certain levels. Some are dropped early while some almost reach the very top.
I discovered that these overly critical teammates of mine were full of resentment for some Rubin Kazan players because they personally knew some of them and could also have been at that level. Some of my teammates were those that did not make the cut to the next level for one reason or the other and were just playing semiprofessional football to keep fit. All their lives they had played football and hoped to become professionals but for one reason or the other they did not make the cut. Their criticism was a sign of deep frustration. While a neutral like me was full of admiration for the Rubin Kazan players, some of those who knew them personally and started with them were full of envy and bitterness and were looking for any and every reason to criticize them. Years later while meditating on some issues concerning ministry, the Holy spirit gave me this parallel.
You see, it is one thing for an unbeliever to be criticizing great men of faith and exploits. There is nothing shocking in that. They are doing the work of their father the devil. But it is a completely different thing sometimes when so called ministers take up the mantle of criticism, looking for any and every opportunity to criticize influential ministries. I know of a former very influential minister of Nigerian origin who unfortunately lost his ministry and has taken up a new role, criticizing most Nigerian ministers of repute as his new ministry.
I am in no way saying that those with influential ministries are perfect. No, not at all, but the truth is that God is the caller and promotion comes from Him alone. Do not be deceived, when it comes to the Kingdom of God, “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.” (John 3:27). God alone is the judge.
Beware of people who criticize other ministers, giving you old stories about how they knew them years ago and started together with them, trying to use old tales to validate their criticism. In most cases it is coming from a bitterness that has taken root on the inside of them. Do not become gullible and allow such people to corrupt your heart.
It takes a great deal of spiritual maturity to see someone you started with in any area of life having massive impact and yet you are able appreciate the hand of God over their life. Never succumb to the temptation of nit-picking and looking for faults in the lives of such people. It is a sign that you are becoming bitter. If there is something seriously wrong with a ministry in your opinion, do not worry. God is the referee, He has the whistle in His mouth, and He knows when to blow it. He alone promotes and He alone demotes.
I hope you were blessed. Please let us be doers of the word and not just hearers.
Pastor Godwin Ikwuchegbani, founder and senior pastor of Mount Zion churches, Russia. You can follow us through this link.
https://www.facebook.com/PastorGodwin.Russia/

Christ Embassy, Warri Zone

We have seen over the years how your passion for Christ has motivated you to keep spreading the gospel.
As you celebrate on this special day, we pray that God will perfect all that concerns you in this year of perfection.
May all your desires in Christ be perfected.
As you have watered, so shall God water you.
It shall be a year of increased grace, honour, strength in good health and all round peace.

Congratulations and God’s Multiplied Blessings Sir.

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Presiding Bishop of Calvary Life Assembly, Kano

Sir, we celebrate you today, always and specially appreciate the hand of the Almighty God on you.
Thank you for being a role model to this generation, shining the gospel of Christ in North West Nigeria and its environs.

We pray for fresh oil, fresh unction and fresh anointing from Heaven’s throne room to do more for His Kingdom.

May you continue to live in divine health, favour, wisdom and peace.
May your labour for the Kingdom not be in vain.
As your days, so shall your strength be.

Congratulations and God’s Multiplied Blessings Sir

From all of us at Church Gist.

The challenge I see a whole lot of times with young people is that they are looking for the ideal man and the ideal woman.
You know what? Your ideal husband is already married, your ideal wife is already married. That’s why some people fall in love with married people. They say “Oh! he’s such a nice man, he’s such an ideal man. He has a good job, he has money he has this, he’s so kind…” Wonderful!

You know, a lot of times this man or lady who looks perfect was not always like that when he/she got married.

If in your vision your husband is a CEO can you recognize him when he’s not yet a CEO? That’s what I’m talking about. You know when Pastor Nike and I got married we were not the way we are now. Hallelujah! It has taken investment. You know this is why I have issues with guys who are almost turning bachelorhood into an institution. What is the big deal? There are lots of people around town who are not getting married because they want to be able to get a mansion, have some money and have some cars. “Ah! How can you marry a girl when you are not yet financially settled”. They already have a job but they are waiting to have an ideal financial situation and I’m telling you if you are in that situation, you’ve been deceived. What a lady needs is not a perfect man in the present. This is about 10 to 40 years time. What she needs is a man who has a vision, who can define exactly where he is going and who he is going to be. That is what defines the kind of wife you should marry.

When Pastor Nike and I got engaged, while we were courting to be married, that was when we discussed our salaries. Then I discovered that her allowance as a Youth Corp member was more than my salary as a Pastor. The day I told her my salary, I quickly told her “you know what? It’s not going to be like this forever. I’m going somewhere. Even though we will help each other at the beginning but there’s coming a time when I will tell you to keep your salary and I will bear the responsibility for this family fully”.

I described the future for her. That’s the essence of Leadership. You have the vision and you have the capacity to communicate it. You should be able to sell your vision to a lady.

Listen lady, if in all of your assessment of a man what you are looking for is who the person is today, you will soon be deceived because the fact that he has a car now is no guarantee that he will have a car in 5 years time.
Listen, making a choice for marriage is lately a matter of intuition. Some people, all they think about is the wedding day. They invest all their thoughts, all their energy, all their preparation in that one day. “Ah, my wedding, hhmmm, the gown will come from Singapore”. Okay so on the wedding day, the pastor says “say after me” and then you say “I do”, after that what next? That’s when some people remember that they’re supposed to do honeymoon. So they do honeymoon for 2,3 or 4 weeks and after that what next? Nothing, no idea because all they were thinking about was the wedding.

Somebody gave us a book when we were preparing to get married titled ‘After The Wedding Comes A Marriage’ that we should prepare more for the marriage than the wedding. So that’s the point. Who is this person going to be?

I will tell you this, the reason why you’re becoming mature is critical because your spirituality is the key thing. Your ability to hear from God is your greatest asset in finding someone to marry. Nobody can accurately predict your future or guarantee what it will turn out to be 20, 30 years from now except God. You need to grow spiritually and develop the ability to hear from God. Take time to pray, catch a vision of your future and then you can marry someone who aligns with that future.
Now, once your vision of the future is defined, your values will be defined. Your values are the things that are very important to you. If you value spirituality, the fear of God, you’ve got to marry someone who also values spirituality or else you are going to crack that marriage up right from the foundation.

If you value honesty, the person has to also value honesty.
Your basic values need to align. You may have a few differences but your basic, foundational, core values need to align. That’s why you need to grow and mature because when you are not yet mature, your values are not yet defined. Once your future is defined, who to marry will be defined. It’s not everyone that is husband material for you. Not every woman is wife material for you. If as a woman you’re Queen material, your husband has got to be a King material so it will be easy for you to make decisions. There are loafers who can’t hang around you because your future is defined, you’ve discovered your purpose.

#RelationshipTuesday

#SamAdeyemi

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I will not reject my God. I will not apologise for believing in my God. I will not apologise for being a Christian. I will not apologise for prayer. I will not apologise for holding on to the Word of God. I will never! Even if 50 million people can march every day for the next 10 years, for me to retract and apologise for what I said — I will not do it.

“I will never say I hate anybody or any nation. I will never. I love everybody. I love Israel. I love the Jews. I love the Palestinians. I love everybody — every nation, every people. I love.

“I said in that webinar that those that are plotting against me right now, even to kill me; those who will plot to destroy and kill me even in 10 years to come — they are already forgiven. I meant it. Everybody who is insulting me. Everybody who is lying about me — whether Christian or not Christian — I love you and I forgive you. May God have mercy on you. May God reveal the truth to you, in the name of Jesus.

“There will, therefore, be no retraction. There is nothing to retract. There will be no apology — not even this political apology that ‘in case I have offended anybody without meaning to offend them, for that reason I …’. I will not apologise for anything. There is nothing to apologise for. There is nothing to retract. I can’t apologise for loving. I cannot apologise for not harbouring hatred and bitterness. I will not.

“If I perish, I perish. Like Esther said: ‘If I perish, I perish.’

“The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will sustain me. He has released at least five prophecies since the 23rd, saying that the battle is won and that He will personally fight it.”

Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.

#WordForToday
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Gospel Minister and songwriter.
Winner of Grammy Award for Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance as well as so many other awards and a worthy example to the upcoming generation.
Your song ‘Break Every Chain’ reverberates round the world daily because there is indeed power in the name of Jesus.

We pray that God’s grace continually rests on you. May you be blessed all the days of your life on the field and in your home.
May God bless and keep you and your family and may you enjoy longevity.
Strength , health, peace and prosperity are yours as you continue a life of stewardship and kingdom service.
Congratulations and God’s Multiplied Blessings.

From all of us at Church Gist.

Revival all through Bible history and our contemporary times is a season of divine opportunities for dramatic change of story both for the Church of Christ and for the people of God who are genuinely dedicated to the move of the Spirit. A season of divine opportunities.

You go to the sea shore and you see the waves come in; wave after wave but every wave coming from the sea comes along with some treasures. They don’t come empty, they come with treasures and those who desire those treasures, just step in and pick them: they are for free.
So is the move of the Spirit, it comes in waves: when it comes, it comes along with diverse opportunities.

We are here in this season of revival, may no one miss the opportunities reserved for him or her in this season.

Among the opportunities is the raw manifestation of the power of God in dealing with issues of our lives and in bringing multitudes into the Kingdom (Habakkuk 3:2).
Everlasting mountains are leveled, perpetual hills are cleared off and then many find their way to their high places as they engage (Habakkuk 3:19).
Those are the testimonies we are having: dramatic change of level, dramatic change of story.
Every revival comes along with the raw manifestation of the power of God and massive salvation of souls (Zephaniah 3:17).

We saw the messenger of the covenant in Malachi 3:1 came suddenly into His temple.
His name? The Holy Ghost
In Acts 2:2, He came suddenly
…He shall sit as a refining fire, so you don’t mess up around Him (Malachi 3:3). So, He brought down Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:5) for trying to corrupt the move of the Spirit.
We saw when He came:
First, He demonstrated that He is the Lord of the Harvest – got 3,000 people saved; first day (Acts 2:41).
The next report in Acts 4:4, 5,000 got saved.
In Acts 5:14 – multitudes of men and women got saved.
We saw Him reap the harvest of two towns at a time (Acts 9:35).

One capital proof of every revival is massive salvation of souls;
– NOT great teachings
– NOT reading from Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic
Massive salvation of souls!
Every divine visitation results in massive salvation of souls.

As mentioned earlier, every revival is accompanied with the raw manifestation of the power of God.
We saw the crippled man at the beautiful gate, got healed with perfect soundness as God begins to demonstrate His power through Apostle Peter (Acts 3:16). From that healing came 5,000 people that received the Word (Acts 4:4).

We saw the raw power of God made manifest through Peter in Acts 5:15-16; through Philip (Acts 8:6).
Raw manifestation of the power of God which is behind the dramatic change of story of God’s people.

That my son said, “he kept engaging: ‘Operation Come and See’, ‘Operation PUSH’.” He kept engaging, brought 3 souls into the Kingdom and followed them up in the first operation; brought 5 souls in the second (Operation).
God said, “this boy won’t let me go.” He opened the heaven over his life
Habakkuk 3:17
Although the fig tree may not blossom the first time, second time: keep engaging with joy and rejoicing; suddenly the heaven opened.
Habakkuk 3:18-19
Every revival is a season of divine opportunities both for the Church and the individual engaging believer. Everybody has a change of story package ready for him/her in a revival.
The end product is supernatural church growth (Acts 6:7, Acts 2:47, Acts 13:44). Every true revival will always culminate in the supernatural growth of the church.

That’s why we are praying for the Church of Christ across the globe to experience a wave of the Spirit, the kind we have never experienced before, so that life can return to every Assembly, multitudes can be saved and established in the faith.

Among other things, engaging with the move of the Spirit engenders healing, health and wholeness. They were healed everyone (Acts 5:16). That man had perfect soundness, so no engaging believer is allowed to remain with any sickness or disease in his life because the Word says every branch in Me that bears fruit, He keeps fit so that He can keep bearing more fruit (John 15:2. 2 Corinthians 5:20, Proverbs 13:17).
If you are involved in praying for souls to be saved, involved in reaching out to souls for salvation, ensuring that souls are preserved in the Kingdom: you are entitled to healthy living. You are a fruit bearing branch, He becomes your Personal Physician and you’re entitled to healthy living.
Please understand that every faithful ambassador is entitled to healthy living.
Who is an ambassador? Anyone with a ministry of reconciliation, that means everyone that is born again (2 Corinthians 5:17-20, Proverbs 13:17).

One of our young persons here went to God in the course of this ongoing revival which began 2015. He said, “Lord, for these 4 reasons, sickness has no right to abide in my system.”
God cleared that disease off.

One of our daughters in the Outreach office: her 2 legs were swollen, had chest problem but she came out, got the blessing, went out. Legs back to shape – this is last week, not last year.

You still remember the testimony of the individual with Elephantiasis with a boil on her nose, Jesus cleared the two, same day. Two legs crashed, the ugly thing on the nose gave way. Same day!
Every faithful ambassador is entitled to healing, health and wholeness.

Too many treasures in a revival!
Too many treasures to catch in a revival!

The truth is, you will never be stagnated anymore in your life!
Your family will never be stagnated anymore!
Your business assumes a new status right now because seeking God first and His Kingdom entitles us to all other things being added for free.

…You know what it means for souls from across the 6 continents to be saved in a service? Only God can do that.
What are you preaching? Only God can do that.
Do you know what it means to get people saved on Twitter? Only God.
You know what it means for souls to be won every day, every week across 7 continents of the world? Only God.
The hardest nations on the earth are tuning in! Praise God. Only God.
I want you to see God in the centre of these things: Don’t see a man in there (Zephaniah 3:17)
What we have now is God in the midst of us. If you think I’m the one, you are missing it!
If you think it’s an opportunity and a chance that just came, you are missing it: IT’S A DIVINE AGENDA.
GLORY TO GOD!

One very respected leader said to me, “we follow the Pillars in our Ministry”: outside of this country, a major voice in the Body of Christ.
Did we write it for anybody to follow? No, we were just following it and since they saw God in it, they began following.
You know how many Pastors around the world today, who listen to what we say first before they go to deliver what God has for their people.
God is in the midst of us. Whatever God can do, cannot remain an obstacle in your life.
Therefore, expect that before this ‘Midst of the Year’ revival season is over, your everlasting mountains are over, your perpetual hills are leveled out in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s what happens.

SPEAK TO THE WEEK:
You are right in the centre of a divine agenda.
It’s your week of bumper harvest, your week of breakthrough in business, your week of testimonies.

#BishopDavidOyedepo
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